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Another Blow Against Trans Fats in Foods

FIRED UP Maria Aposporos, of Curleys Diner in Stamford, Conn., where trans fats were banned in July, says the change has been easy.Credit
Judith Pszenica for The New York Times

TWO years after New York City banned partially hydrogenated oil, a common ingredient in baked goods and frozen French fries linked to heart disease, local governments around the region are considering and imposing similar measures.

Officials in Suffolk County on Long Island are the latest to adopt a ban on trans fats — which are derived from partially hydrogenated oil — from its restaurants.

Suffolk, which imposed the ban earlier this month, follows Nassau, Westchester and Albany Counties in New York, and Stamford, Conn., in banning the use in restaurants of artificial trans fats, which are found in margarines and shortenings. “This is an important bill that will help residents of Suffolk County eat smarter and healthier,” said County Executive Steve Levy, who on Feb. 6 signed the law, which had been proposed by County Legislator Lou D’Amaro.

The law also requires chain restaurants to post the calorie counts of menu items. “It’s for the taxpayer, too, because it’s the taxpayer who also foots the bill for the consequences of obesity,” Mr. Levy said.

County health inspectors will monitor compliance with the trans fat ban during routine visits to restaurants. Those that fail to comply will be cited and fined and could possibly lose their license, Mr. D’Amaro said.

Even members of the Nassau-Suffolk Master Bakers Association expressed support for the ban, which will be phased in over the next 15 months, and, according to Mr. D’Amaro, “fulfills the government’s obligation to do all it can to protect public health.”

But not everyone wants the government meddling with their food.

Two years ago, after Ellen Karcher, then a state senator in New Jersey, proposed a trans fat ban there, she received physical threats and hate mail, she said, forcing her staff to close her office temporarily. In addition, callers to a radio station suggested that the state investigate whether Ms. Karcher’s three children were malnourished.

“People just went nuts,” said Ms. Karcher, who served in the New Jersey Senate from 2003 to 2007 and lives on a 10-acre farm in Marlboro, N.J., where she harvests lavender and keeps bees. “They were calling the office, screaming, ‘Get your hands off my food!’ ”

Ms. Karcher sought a ban on trans fats because, she said, she believes their consumption contributes to obesity-related illnesses. (New Jersey spent $2.3 billion on obesity-related illnesses in 2003, half of which was paid for by taxpayers through Medicare and Medicaid, according to a 2006 report by the State Department of Health and Senior Services.)

Ms. Karcher’s bill never made it out of committee, but the General Assembly passed a law two years ago that included reducing the amount of trans fats in New Jersey’s public school lunch programs. She said she had thought that her proposal would be welcomed, since almost a quarter of her constituents worked in New York City, where a similar ban was passed in 2007.

“They kept screaming that they wanted choice,” Ms. Karcher said in a recent phone interview. “Well, it’s not like you can walk into a restaurant and say, ‘Give me trans fats or non-trans fat.’ It’s not like ordering chocolate or vanilla.”

Photo

Anthony Fahey, general manager of Paces Steak House in Port Jefferson, N.Y., expects the fare to taste the same despite the ban.Credit
Phil Marino for The New York Times

Trans fat is created when a vegetable oil is pumped with hydrogen — hence the name partially hydrogenated — and becomes a solid at room temperature, said Jennifer Crum, a nutritionist at New York University’s Langone Medical Center. Trans fats in certain margarines and shortenings prolong the shelf life of cookies, cakes and frying oils.

Because their chemical composition is altered at the atomic level, trans fats increase LDL, or “bad,” cholesterol, and decrease HDL, or “good,” cholesterol. Consumption of trans fats can clog arteries.

“The problem with eating outside the home is that you never know how much trans fats are added,” Ms. Crum said. “Whenever possible, look at the ingredients on the box.”

Ms. Crum said that for most adults, no more than 10 percent of their daily calories should come from saturated fats, like those in red meat, butter and other dairy products. The United States Food and Drug Administration estimates that Americans eat 4.7 pounds of trans fat each year.

At Pace’s Steak House in Port Jefferson, on Long Island, where the happy hour mozzarella sticks and buffalo wings are fried in trans-fat oil, the general manager, Anthony Fahey, said there should be little perceived taste difference when his kitchen switches from trans fat to non-trans fat oils, but he was dubious about its health impact.

“IT’S up to the individual,” he said. “Look, there’s nothing wrong with eating a steak. Just don’t eat five a day. It’s the same thing with trans fats. You can’t overdo it.”

The Westchester Board of Health passed a ban on the use of cooking oils that contain trans fats in restaurants, schools and other licensed food establishments in December 2007. By April 8, 2008, Health Department inspectors were authorized to cite and fine violators of the ban, but Caren Halbfinger, the spokeswoman for the county executive’s office, said few were found to be out of compliance.

In Connecticut last year, two state senators, John McKinney of Fairfield and Andrew W. Roraback of Goshen, both Republicans, sponsored a bill to ban trans fats, but it never made it to the House. Although the two legislators had hoped to reintroduce the bill this year, the issue is unlikely to attract much attention while Connecticut is wrestling with a projected $8.7 billion deficit over the next two fiscal years, said Brett R. Cody, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans.

Stamford appears to be the only city in Connecticut to enact a ban on trans fats, as of last July.

Maria Aposporos, who, with her sister, Eleni Begetis, has owned Curley’s Diner in Stamford since 1977, had little difficulty with the change.

“I always used vegetable oil,” said Ms. Aposporos, who explained that her doctor long ago informed her that solid fat looks the same in your body as it does on your plate. “I’m eating at the diner, my grandchildren eat here, so it has to be healthy.”

Still, Ms. Aposporos, a Republican member of the Stamford Board of Representatives, conceded that if a customer wants toast with margarine, she provides it.

A Republican colleague, Joseph Coppola Jr., voted against the ban. “Government has to stay out of our lives,” he said. “It’s about choice. If people are stupid enough to fill their diet with trans fats, they’re just stupid.”

Mr. Coppola said meddling with food choices is “feel-good legislation and we’ve got other fish to fry.” No mention, incidentally, of his oil preference.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page NJ3 of the New York edition with the headline: Another Blow Against Trans Fats in Foods. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe